05 Jul Interdisciplinary and Comparative Taiwanese Studies
Conveners
Clio Yun-Chen Lu (History of Art and Architecture) clio610@hotmail.com
Chi-Ting Peng (History) chitingpeng@gmail.com
Paul Spickard (History) spickard@history.ucsb.edu
Various historical developments started from, came to or converged on Taiwan: the indigenous development of Austronesian languages and cultures for thousands of years, Spanish and Dutch colonization at the Age of Discovery (the 15-17th centuries) in European history, the immigration from South-East China and the expansion of the Qing Empire to Taiwan, Japanese colonization from the period of Neo-Colonialism to the end of the Second World War, the retreat of the government of the Republic of China to Taiwan and the subsequent re-sinicization in the wake of the founding of People’s Republic of China by the Communist Party, and the current development of Taiwanese national identity. This research group aims to investigate the interlacing of diverse heritages in Taiwan by placing it in different historical contexts and rethink how the study of Taiwan can throw new light to the regional studies of South-Pacific Islands, China, Japan and East Asia and the theories of post-colonialism, nationalism and identity.